


Playing games with you

by Hllangel



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hllangel/pseuds/Hllangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Harry scoops the baby into his lap. "This is Anna. Anais. Say hi to Grimmy, love." Harry takes hold of her arm and gently stretches out her tiny baby hand so Nick can shake it with two fingers. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Hiya, how are you?" Anna gurgles happily and throws herself back against Harry's chest, making Harry laugh.</i>
</p>
<p>Louis needs a last minute babysitter, and Harry ends up with a baby for one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing games with you

**Author's Note:**

> Look, is anyone surprised that I took the Tiny Baby Tommo news and made it about Harry and Nick? Thought so. This is pure fluff and utter nonsense. 
> 
> Thanks to Fiarra for holding my hand, as usual. 
> 
> Title from Years & Years "Real". (though the song is a lot more angsty than this is.) 
> 
> This is a work of fiction based on the lives and likenesses of real people. If you are one of them and you're reading it, please turn around.

Harry's not waiting by the door when Nick lets himself into the house, a bottle of wine tucked under his arm, Pig's leash in his other hand. Nick has his own keys, and an electronic dongle for the front gate, but Harry's security system is set to let him know when someone is coming in, and he's usually on his feet and waiting by the time Nick makes it through the door. 

It's nice, that illusion that Harry's just been waiting to greet him with a hug and a kiss. And sometimes a blowjob in the entryway, when it's been ages and they've only got half an afternoon to themselves. 

What he finds instead is some distinctly upbeat, clear music playing against the low rumble of Harry's voice. Pig makes a beeline for the living room once she's off her lead, and Nick follows by way of the kitchen to open the bottle and grab a few glasses. 

He is absolutely not prepared to find Harry sitting on a blanket on the floor, leaning over and intently trying to teach a tiny human how to play patty cake. Something tightens in Nick's chest, rather unexpectedly, and it's a miracle he doesn't drop the full bottle of Bordeaux on Harry's floor, with the way he can't breathe for a long minute. 

"Hiya," he croaks out eventually. He leaves the wine and glasses on the side table and drops to the floor to greet the baby, and get a bit of control over Pig who is nosing around curiously. She's pretty gentle with kids, though, so Nick isn't overly worried. "Who do we have here?" 

Harry scoops the baby into his lap. "This is Anna. Anais. Say hi to Grimmy, love." Harry takes hold of her arm and gently stretches out her tiny baby hand so Nick can shake it with two fingers. 

"Hiya, how are you?" Anna gurgles happily and throws herself back against Harry's chest, making Harry laugh. "Who does she belong to?" 

"Louis," Harry says with a shrug. "The nanny got food poisoning off a dodgy taco apparently, and everyone else is tied up or couldn't get down here fast enough. I know we had plans, but I didn't think you'd mind? We were just going to stay in anyway, and there was begging involved." 

"It's fine," Nick says. Pig tucks herself under his arm as Nick leans forward to make friends with Anna. She buries her face in Harry's chest, but Nick will get through to her in the end. He's excellent with babies. "She's lovely, isn't she." 

"Goes to bed early, too," Harry says, winking. "We can still have our dinner." He lets go of Anna long enough to make air quotes and smirk at Nick before going back to smiling at the baby in his lap. "I said I'd keep her until morning so no one has to come get her in the middle of the night." 

Nick can easily read between those lines. "You do have some good ideas, Styles." 

~*~ 

After feeding Anna, they bundle her up and take Pig for a walk through the heath. Neither of them are exactly anonymous, but it's cold and blustery enough to justify huge coats, scarves and beanies until barely any of their faces are actually showing. Plus, the weather is keeping most other people away. There's a few joggers out, some with dogs of their own, but they're keeping to themselves, heads down against the wind and drizzle and no one pays them any attention. 

It feels like the last five years haven't happened, like maybe he met Harry as a radio intern, or pulled him at a club one night, and not as a noodle of a popstar bound for world domination. Some other life where Harry wasn't gone ten months out of the year, where people weren't falling over themselves to get a piece of him, where photographers weren't stalking them both to catch them in the act. 

Right now, it's just the two of them and Anna in her buggy giggling up at them whilst Harry makes funny faces. Nick keeps one eye on Pig as she runs and chases squirrels, whistling to bring her back occasionally so she doesn't stray too far. Most of his attention is on Harry and Anna, though. She's a happy baby, it seems. Though Nick can't blame her, the joy on her face every time Harry does his stunned fish impression with wide eyes and open mouth, or goes cross-eyed and sticks his tongue out is pretty much exactly what Nick feels when he's around Harry, too. 

When they get back to the house, Nick takes over entertaining Anna whilst Harry cooks for them all. Soft cooked plain pasta and diced peaches for Anna, salad and a curry for the two of them. Anna is an easy baby to get along with, Nick finds. She's quite content to sit in her chair and play with some wood beads on a string whilst Nick drinks wine and teases Harry about his cooking and how long it's taking, and maybe Nick should just order them takeaway.

"I waited for your spinach pie," Harry says, poking his head out of the kitchen. He's grinning, dimples poked out of his cheeks. "This isn't going to take five hours. Ten minutes more, I think." 

"I'm starting a timer," Nick says, then promptly forgets because Anna is trying to eat the string she's been playing with. 

Having a baby at dinner's not new to Nick. He's over at Mairead's place often, and she brings Arlo to his all the time. Even when Arlo was tiny, they'd bring him on holiday. Nick loves babies, he just hasn't been around Harry and babies at the same time, and it's giving Nick a weird achy feeling that he's not quite ready to address. 

Harry seems to understand, because he keeps giving Nick weird looks across the table, speculative. But he doesn't say anything, just keeps up their usual chatter about work in between keeping an eye on Anna to make sure she doesn't eat the wrong things. 

In the end, Nick does the washing up whilst Harry takes her upstairs for a bath and to put her to bed, before coming back down with a monitor clutched in his hand to find Nick on the sofa. Harry drops down next to him and reaches for the wine Nick's left for him. 

"I really am sorry about this," Harry said. "I wanted you to myself tonight, too, but Louis was desperate." 

Nick turns to draw Harry into a kiss. The first one since he'd arrived, since they'd both been a bit occupied with the baby. It's slow and lazy, comfortable, sweet. Harry sets his wine and the monitor back on the coffee table. 

"She's asleep now, though," he leans in and pushes Nick until he's lying on the sofa, head pillowed on the arm, and Harry's on top of him. 

"Hi," Harry whispers. He noses Nick's cheek, and Nick can't help but smile. Harry is utterly ridiculous most of the time. 

"Hi," Nick says, sneaking his hand up under Harry's tshirt. 

After that, things aren't really different, except that Harry pauses for half a second to listen to every crackle the monitor makes. Nick just waits for him, knowing that if something was really wrong with Anna they'd know it, it wouldn't just be static clicks. 

They make their way upstairs and fall into bed, shifting against each other and holding tight. Harry still pauses every minute or so to listen, but Nicks' starting to find that it's just endearing instead of annoying. Harry's always loved babies, and even though he's a last-minute, completely unprepared babysitter tonight, he's trying his best. 

Nick tries not to think about what Harry would be like with a baby of his own, but now that he's not distracted anymore, and Harry's climbed sleepily out of bed to get a flannel to clean Nick up and then padded out of the room to go check on Anna in her portable crib, it's hard not to. Harry's life is still to hectic for words, and he'd have told Nick by now if that was something he wanted near term. If he even wanted Nick involved. 

It's been, well, Nick isn't sure where they're counting from these days. Five years since they met; a few months less since the first time they tumbled into bed, tipsy and breathless, hands everywhere and reverently touching. Three and a half years since the Brits where they'd decided to just say "fuck it." Four years, three, two since Harry left, never quite promising to come back, but doing it anyway. Three months since he finally had, for good, he says. 

"You good?" Harry asks, slipping back under the covers. He scoots closer to Nick but doesn't drape himself all over even though Nick knows he wants to. Usually, he'll tolerate some cuddling after, but he always just gets too hot and ends up kicking Harry to the other side of the bed. And tonight Harry had gone immediately to check on the baby. Nick compromises and pulls Harry to his chest, wrapping an arm around him for Harry to hold. Nick buries his nose in Harry's hair and breathes him in. 

~*~ 

In the morning, Nick wakes first, because Anna is crying and Nick's far more alert in the early hours. It's only slightly earlier than his weekday morning alarm anyway. There's a bag with her things on the bed in the guest room, and a clear space on the desk with a pad on it for him to change her nappy, so he does that and takes her downstairs to play for a while until Harry wakes up and Nick can take Pig out. 

He brings them back coffees, and then they just sit in the living room and wait until her dad comes to get her. 

Harry answers the door on his own, and Nick listens. 

"You're not stealing my baby, Styles," Louis says. His voice is sharp, and carries much easier than Harry's, which is more of a deep rumble. His response gets lost between the door and the living room where Nick's on the floor. 

"Make your own," Louis says. 

"We've tried," Harry says. "Never seems to work." 

Harry's carrying a paper, and he hands it to Nick whilst Louis scoops up Anna and makes faces at her. She's delighted to have him back, and Nick ignores the hollow feeling in his heart to look at what Harry's handed him. 

He hadn't noticed the photographers yesterday when they were out, but they'd obviously been following them, even though they're not supposed to. There's a full page shot on the cover of the Daily Star, both of them leaning over Anna's buggy, Nick's hand on Harry's back. He remembers that moment, actually. she'd kicked her blankets off and they'd stopped for Harry to tuck them back in. Pig's in the shot too, almost out of frame, carrying back a stick for Nick to throw for her. 

There's more pictures inside, ones where you can see their faces. Laughing at each other, at Anna. At something on Nick's phone. 

They look — they look like they're already a family. Relaxed and happy. He's always looked particularly lovesick around Harry, but this is something else entirely. It's a lot to take in, so Nick doesn't say anything whilst Harry and Louis go around and pick up all of Anna's things, carrying bag after bag out to his car. 

Then it's just the two of them, and Harry's house is mostly quiet except for Pig's snores from her cushion in the corner. 

~*~ 

"Let's go out tonight," Nick says over lunch. It's his last free weekend night for months, with X Factor live shows starting up again next week. He has no idea how much longer Harry is really going to stick around, as he's starting to really put things together for a solo album, since he's not got a band one to promote this autumn. 

"Okay," Harry says. And it's as easy as that. 

They start with dinner at Chiltern, then drinks at Shoreditch, and finally Groucho, where Nick fucks Harry in the toilets, just because they want to. They're photographed leaving each time, and Nick knows it'll make a splash, again, but he's too happy and drunk to care. 

"Nick," Harry says, nosing into Nick's shoulder once they're safely back at his and in bed. He bites gently before speaking more, voice slurry, but clear enough for Nick to understand. He's had enough practice over the years. "What if. What if we were. Trying. To make a baby." 

"Don't think it's going to work, love," Nick says, carding his fingers through Harry's long hair. 

"M'serious." Harry bites him again. 

"You're wankered," Nick says. Harry lifts his head up to look at Nick with glassy eyes. "We'll talk later, all right?" 

Nick has no idea what to say to Harry once they're both sober enough to have that kind of conversation. It had felt so easy with Anna, but then she was always going to go back to Louis. And if Harry wants to talk about having a baby together, well, there are a lot of other things they have to talk about first. 

Even so, Nick can't deny that it feels like it could be easy, the two of them. He holds onto that, and Harry, and he drifts off. 

~*~ 

Nick wakes up first in the morning, terribly hungover. He doesn't have to walk Pig, but his mouth feels like death, his head is caving in and he has to piss like mad. Harry doesn't even move as Nick stumbles out of bed and into a wall before finding the door to the toilet with his eyes mostly closed. At least Harry keeps a bottle of paracetamol above the sink. 

He's nearly through his second cup of tea when Harry comes down, hair pulled back into his usual messy bun, just wearing his pants. He drops on the sofa next to Nick and steals the rest of the tea. 

"Get your own," Nick says, even though he doesn't really mind. 

Harry doesn't speak for another ten minutes, just buries his face in Nick's shoulder and holds on. Nick's used to Harry's need to cuddle away his hangovers. 

Nick is just starting to drift off when Harry stirs again. 

"I meant it," he mumbles. "What I said last night. I wasn't that drunk." 

"Harry --" Nick swallows. "It's only been a few months. Isn't it a bit early to be thinking about that?" Nine months since Harry had come over to his on Christmas, eyes bright, pulling Nick upstairs to tell Nick that they'd decided, for real this time, to take a break after the next tour. _A few more months,_ he'd said, sealing his lips over Nick's. _Can you wait for me a few more months?_

He should have known then. 

"Bullshit," Harry says, fierce. He pulls back to look Nick straight in the eyes. "It's been years. And you know it." 

Nick doesn't have any defenses against that, because Harry's right. He tugs Harry back down into his spot on Nick's shoulder instead of answering. 

"Is that — do you think that's something you want?"

"Yes." Nick says. It's surprisingly easy, in the end. He's loved Harry almost since they met, when Harry was a floppy muppet of an almost-popstar. "Maybe not tomorrow, though." 

Harry hits him. "It'll take time, you idiot. Have to find a surrogate. Or we could adopt. Need to give Stephanie and Caroline some time to build a media strategy. And I'm going back in the studio soon to start recording again. You've got X Factor. And Breakfast. I don't want to pull you away from that." 

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?" 

"You haven't?" Harry looks surprised. 

"It never felt real before. You were never here, and we never said anything. And then I came over and you had a baby on the floor. I've been going crazy for two days." 

"It's real now," Harry says. "We're real."

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://glitterbootsandyellowshorts.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
